zenith, and their power was almost irresistible, they took to themselves the exclusive prerogative of dispensing Pardons, and carried it to a most unwarrantable length. Instead of confining them, according to their original institution, to the ordinary purposes of ecclesiastical discipline, they extended them to the punishment of the wicked in the world to come; instead of shortening the duration of earthly penance, they pretended that they could deliver men from the pains of Purgatory; instead of allowing them, gratuitously, and upon just grounds, to the penitent offender, they sold them in the most open and corrupt manner to the profligate and abandoned, who still continued in their vices. They did not scruple to call these Indulgencies, a plenary remission of all sins, past, present, and future, and to offer them as a certain and immediate passport from the troubles of this world to the eternal joys of heaven; and to give some sort of colour and support to this infamous traffic, they confidently asserted that the superabundant merits of Christ, and of his faithful servants, formed a fund of which the pope was the sole manager; and that he could, at his own discretion, dispense these merits, as the sure means of procuring pardon from God, in any proportion, for any species of wickedness, and to any person he pleased. The bare statement of this doctrine is a suffi cient refutation of it, and it is scarcely necessary to add, that it has no foundation whatever in Scripture. It is an arrogant and impious usurpation of a power, which belongs to God alone; and it has an obvious tendency to promote licentiousness and sin of every description, by holding out an easy and certain method of absolution: "Securitas delicti etiam libido est ejus (h)." The popes derived very large sums from the sale of these indulgencies; and it is well known that the gross abuses practised in granting them were among the immediate and principal causes of bringing about the Reformation. They continued to the last to be sold at Rome, and were to be purchased by any who were weak enough to buy them, whether Protestants or Papists. (*) The third thing condemned in this article is the WORSHIPPING AND ADORATION OF IMAGES. Nothing can be more clear, full, and distinct, than the expressions of Scripture prohibiting the making and worshipping of images: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shall not bow down thyself (h) Tert. de Pud. to (*) See the form of a "Solemn Plenary Indulgence" granted in 1809 by a bull of Pope Pius VII. given at Cork, in Ireland, Nov. 2, 1813, by Dr. Francis Moylan, titular bishop of the diocese. to them, nor serve them (i)."-" Neither shalt thou set up any image, which the Lord thy God hateth (k)." And there is no sin so strongly and repeatedly condemned in the Old Testament as that of idolatry: the Jews, in the early part of their history, were much addicted to it, and were constantly punished. In the Gospels no mention is made of idolatry, because the Jews, to whom all our Saviour's instructions were addressed, were not once guilty of it after their return from the Babylonian captivity: but in the Acts, St. Paul is represented as greatly affected, when he saw that the city of Athens, the renowned seat of learning and the liberal arts, was "wholly given to idolatry (1);" and he told the. Athenians, that they ought not "to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device (m)." In his Epistle to the Romans he condemns those who "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made (i) Exod. c. 20. v. 4 & 5. The Papists upon the Continent, in writing the ten commandments, leave out the second, and to keep up the number ten, divide the tenth into two. Vide Burnet Ref. v. 3. p. 264. This is also done in Butler's "General Catechism for the Kingdom," published by the authority of the "four R.C.Archbishops of Ireland," and printed at Dublin in 1811 (the eighth edition) by H. Fitzpatrick, printer and bookseller to the Roman catholic college, Maynooth. (k) Deut. c. 16. v. 22. (1) Acts, c. 17. v. 16. (m) Acts, c. 17. v. 29. made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things (n);" and he praises the Thessalonians, who "had turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God (o)." St. John says, "Little children keep yourselves from idols (p)." That the first Christians had no images, is evident from this circumstance, that they were reproached by the heathen, because they did not use them; and we find almost every ecclesiastical writer of the first four centuries arguing against the Gentile practice of image-worship, from the plain declarations of Scripture, and from the pure and spiritual nature of God. In the beginning of the fourth century the Council of Illyberis decreed that pictures ought not to be placed in churches, "lest that which is worshipped should be painted upon the walls (q)." Images seem to have been introduced into churches in the fifth century; and it was probably first done to preserve the remembrance, and do honour to the memory, departed saints, though some have imagined it originated in a wish to comply with the prejudices of the heathen, and to make them better disposed to embrace the Gospel. It was impossible to look at these interesting representations, standing in places consecrated to the service of (n) Rom. c. 1. v. 23. (0) 1 Thess. c. 1. of God, V. 9. God, without feeling some degree of respect; that respect was gradually heightened into reverence, and at last ended in absolute worship: so that Christians, who in the first ages were reproached by the heathen for not having images, were in the seventh century accused by the Jews and even by Mahometans, of the grossest idolatry. In the following century began the famous controversy about breaking of images, which was carried on for more than a hundred years with the greatest eagerness and animosity, both in the East and in the West. Different popes and different councils, notwithstanding their pretensions to infallibility, espoused different sides of the question: but at length, after much uncertainty and fluctuation of opposite interests, those who contended for the lawfulness of worshipping images prevailed, and from that time image-worship has been an established doctrine of the church of Rome. It was decreed by the Council at Trent, the last general council, that "due worship should be given to images," and several regulations were added upon the subject. Among other corruptions of the church of Rome, that of the use of images was rejected by our Reformers, as being contrary to the practice of the primitive church, and plainly REPUGNANT TO THE WORD OF GOD, The |